As Senior Vice President of Digital Media for the National Basketball Association, Melissa Rosenthal Brenner has led the development, oversight, and implementation of the NBA's global social media strategy and digital portfolio across multiple media platforms. In that role, she has forged groundbreaking deals with leading social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter, found innovative ways to incorporate social media throughout the league's wide array of assets, and helped NBA partners maximize social media opportunities with the league. In addition, Brenner oversees the development of the league's international digital products and works closely with NBA Digital on the league's domestic digital assets, including NBA.com, NBA LEAGUE PASS, and NBA Mobile.

Under her leadership, the NBA has built one of the largest social media communities in the world, with more than 650 million likes and followers combined across all league, team, and player pages.

Sam Laird reports and writes about a little bit of everything (but mostly sports) from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable fulltime in January 2012, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.